art of focus stacking

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The Art of Focus Stacking

The Artof Focus

StackingA Primer


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The Art of Focus StackThe Photographer

Focus Stacking

Interest in ocus stacking is increasing rapidly. In this shortarticle, I would like to suggest some reasons why this mightbe. For those o you unamiliar with ocus stacking, letsmake clear what it is.

Just as exposure bracketing and HDR (High DynamicRange), techniques where a number o photos are takenat dierent exposures and then seamlessly combined intoa nal photograph are popular, so ocus stacking takes aseries o photos o an object each taken at a slightly di-erent ocus points and combines these photos seamlesslyinto a nal photo that represents the object with ever y-thing in ocus, as i it naturally had g reater depth o eld

(DOF). Focus Stacking is ess entially ocus bracketing,and the result is a photo where everything (or more thanyou might expect) appears to be in ocus, as opposed to thetraditional photograph where there is only a single point oocus and anything not at the point is to s ome degree out oocus, however slightly. Te resulting stacked photo (romcombining the images at dierent ocal distances) can beremarkable, and advances in sotware like Zerene Stacker,Helicon Focus, Adobes Photoshop CS4 are perecting thistechnique.

Two Types of Focus Stacking

Tere are two general types o ocus stacking being used to-day, with perhaps the most common idea o this techniqueincluding a camera mounted on a ocusing rail (or a lenswith bellows attached) and the photographer taking manydozens (sometimes up to 150-200) photographs, each onejust a ew millimeters apart rom one another. Tis rsttechnique is used mostly or scientic, product photog-raphy, and by a ew naturalists who careully create deepstacks, usually in a studio, like the one on the let, which isvery lovely.

And while this more elaborate orm o ocus stacking iswonderul in its own way, it requires more specializedequipment and does not readily lend itsel to being usedoutside in the elds and woods, or at least is more dicultto take outside. Tere are many tutorials on the web orthis type o more-technical style o ocus stacking available,so I reer you to Google to nd those. For mysel, I am notmuch interested in that method, because I dont want tohaul all that equipment around.

It is also possible to stack photos and get excellent results

armed with just a camera and a tripod, and that will be themethod presented here. In this article I will present someguidelines to what I call Short-Stacking, where instead o100 layers painstakingly shot to achieve perect incrementalocus (a science in itsel), we shoot just a ew (lets say romtwo to a dozen) photos and combine those to achieve theeect o seeming greater ocus and depth o eld (DOF).Tis less technical approach is, by denition, somewhatmore impressionistic than the rst method I described, be-cause no attempt is made to get every possible micro layer-

step photographed, which in nature (as we know) is verydicult due to wind, changing light, moving creatures,and so on.

With short-stacking we shoot ewer photos, choosingwhich layers in the scene we want to capture and have inocus that represent our impression o what is key or beatiul about the particular shot. o my mind, although ledemanding there is somewhat more art in this method, that is just my opinion. I like it because I can be out in twilds o nature without a lot o equipment and still pro-duce photos with an apparent greater ocus and depth oeld, thus: ocus stacking.

The Equipment Needed

While theoretically you can stack ocus with any digitalcamera, in reality the process quickly sorts itsel out inavor o better cameras and (or sure) sharp lenses. Aterall, the ocus in ocus stacking means trying to get thinsharp, and that requires a lens that is actually sharp and camera that can process the light rom the lens e cientlIn practice any decent digital camera with a sharp lens wwork, but like everything else, it is easy to all into the ptern o wanting a better camera and (in particular) betteand sharper lenses. And lets not orget about tripods.

While some ew photographers who ocus stack make avirtue out o hand-holding their shots (Look mom, notripod!), the rest o us will nd that we want our cameraand lens mounted on a stable tripod. With all o the othvariables in this technique, trying to hand-hold the camis not something I would choose to do with this techniqSo, in this presentation, good ocus stacking requires atripod. Ater all, we want the scene to hold perectly stilwhile we sample shots at dierent ocal distances. Havinthe camera also shake and move around simply because am holding it does not interest me. So, I suggest you nea camera, a good lens, and both o those mounted on asturdy tripod.

The Actual Technique

Given that you have the camera securely mounted on atripod, the technique is pretty straight orward. You aimthe camera at a scene you like, w hether close-up (as inmacro photography) or arther away (as with landscape)and proceed to take several careully-ocused photos atvarious ocal distances. You will need to decide what paro the scene you want to have in ocus, which or a land

scape shot may be the whole thing, but or a close-up shit could be just a fower. Lets use a fower or a lea as anexample.

Starting at the very ront most part o the fower, careulocus at that ront edge and take a s hot. Next, using theocus ring on your camera, move it just enough to ocuslittle deeper into the subject and take a second shot, andon, until your nal shot is one o the ar (rear) edge o tsubject.

Example of Deep Stack Focus Stacking

A Deep Stack Using a Focus Rail by Ed French

This is a 67 image pano where each image had a generous overlap > 50%. The center was shot at f/5.6and focus stacked from another 55 images. After the center images were taken, the artist switched tof/22 and shot the 66 individual frame for the rest of the pano. See more at: http://www.efrench.members.

winisp.net/ Used with permission.


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The Art of Focus Stack

You now have a series o photos, each with a dierent ocuspoint, running rom the ront to the back o the object. Ineach shot, part o the fower is in perect ocus, while the resto the shot (to some degree) lacks ocus. You might have as ewphotos as two or as many as you like or eel you need. As men-tioned earlier, i you get into dozens or hundreds o shots, youprobably need to have special equipment, chiefy some kind oocusing rack to mount your camera on that allows tiny evenly-spaced incremental movements, etc. For reasons given above, Iam not going there in this article, but working with j ust a cam-era and tripos..

Once you have taken several layers o shots, you are ready toprocess the layers into a single photograph. You do this back

home on your computer using special sotware which you w illneed to have. Some brands o ocus-stacking sotware include:

Adobe Photoshop CS4CombineZMHelicon FocusZerene Stacker

I have tried all o the above sotware and, while they all seemto work, each has its quirks. CombineZM is ree (GPL), s oyou might want to download a copy, but it lacks the polishand ease o use (IMO) that I look or in a program. Te mostwell-known application that can process photo stacks is AdobePhotoshop CS4, which is easy to us e, but it is not ree and alsoruns very slowly when building s tacks. Tere is a general re-view o ocus-stacking sotware later in this article, includinghow to stack in Photoshop, but all o the above-listed sotwaredo more or less the same thing, which is to align your stack ophotos and merge them. Te program I us e almost all the timeis Zerene Stacker, but all o the above can do the job.

Software to Align and Merge

Using the sotware, the stack o photos we took, each at a dier-ent ocus point, needs to be lined up. Every time we turn the o-cus ring, the whole image is enlarged (or shrunk), depending onwhich way we turn it. While each layer is a photo o the sameobject, these photos are enough dierent that they dont just au-tomatically line up. Tey have to be aligned, one with the other.Once the stack o photos are in the stacking sotware (each onein a dierent layer), the program has to do two things and inthis order. First the program will align all o the dierent photosso they line up with one another internally. Tis can take a longwhile in Photoshop, but Helicon Focus and Zerene Stacker arevery ast.

Once the layers are aligned, we then the aligned layers are bl-eneded to merge the separate layers into a single photo, whichwe then fatten and save to our hard drive. It is as simple as that,although these operations can take a long time, depending onthe number o layers and the subject matter. Something with alot o contrast and detail is easier or the sotware to align thansay a pile o sand, whe re there are not many reerence objects. Itall depends. Some take seconds, while others can take 30 min-utes or more. Photo stacking, like macro photography itsel, is alesson in patience, so i you are in a hurry, I dont suggest it. For

me it has been good, because I need to learn to have patience and this is a un way to do that.

The Result

So there you have the ge neral technique, which as yosee is actually pretty simple. Te tricky part is learninhow to get the results you imagine, rather than the reyou actually get. Focus stacking is a natural teacher abexpectations and real-world experience. You dont alweasily get what you want. At le ast I dont.

However, ocus stacking can deliver stunning results wall goes well. I nd it worth the eort, but dont imagthat ocus stacking is the only kind o photography I Tere are subjects that lend themselves to stacking anthose that do not. I already knew something about trditional depth-o-eld photography and wanted to adthis new technique to my skills. In this article I will tillustrate (using photos) some o the ins and outs o stacking, hopeully to make your experience o this anating technique easier.

Beore we get into some o the technique o ocus staI would like to present a possible reason why ocus staing is so appealing to the eye.

A Possible Theory

Human vision can only ocus on one area o a scene atime. No matter how much we take in, no matter howmuch is going on around us, our eyes can only ocus one point at any given time. Everything but that poinocus is, to some degree, out o ocus. Just try it now.

across the room at an object and note how your peripvision on either side o the object is slightly out o oWe are so used to this phenomenon that we are s eldoeven aware o it.

Although everything around us actually is not in ocuexcept where we look, this does not aect us because ever we look, things are in ocus. Te mind automatibehaves as i we live in a world where everything is alin ocus, because as we look here or there, things are ain ocus, which brings me to my point:

Te photos we take, at le ast at near distances, are seldin complete ocus. In act, we have no choice but to on one area o a scene or another, and all other areas be at least somewhat out o ocus. Tis is why photogphers make such a big deal out o depth o eld (DO

particular, macro photographers struggle to get this bor that butterfy (in its entirety) in ocus. We push oustops so high that diraction oten destroys our resolubeore we can get everything in ocus. Enter ocus sta

Focus Stacking creates a photo image where most evething is in ocus, just like our mind assumes the worlthere is, as well in ocus. While with most photos wdrawn to wherever the photographer happened to ocgiven a stacked photo, we are ree to look anywhere wwant. Te photographer no longer dictates where ourshould go by his point o ocus, and we are at liberty

Focus Stacking


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just kind o look around as we like.

Tis newound reedom brings a kind o spaciousness to themind and stacked photos have an almost 3D quality, whenreally the only thing new is that the whole picture (or at leastthe main subject) is more in ocus than we are used to. Letslook at examples o stack photos and some o the things tokeep in mind.

Focus Stacking

S k d Ph


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The Art of Focus StackA Simple Two-Photo Stack Resulting Stacked Photo

The Simplest Stack

Here is a stack o two photos, a nearshot (above) and a ar shot (below).Stack the two together, blend them,and we get the nished shot on theright side o the page. Pretty simple,two quick shots combined to giveyou a depth o eld it would be verydicult to get otherwise.

Te result composite photo puts therailing, the boad walk, and even the

background in decent ocus, andlends a sense o space and clarity tothe shot.

Note: With a good 60mm lens, youmight be able to get this depth oeld without stacking.

NEAR SHOT

FAR SHOT

Problems with Focus Stacking Stacked Photo

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Here is a photo o a little spring diorama, some Michiganerns emerging. Notice how the erns in the ront are inocus on the let, but those in the back are not. In the rightphoto, the erns in the rear are in ocus, but those in rontare not. Our eye is drawn to the area in the photo where ev-erything is in ocus. rying to get the whole scene into ocusthrough manipulating the DOF would be dicult, i onlybecause the woods where these erns grow is quite dark.

Now lets look at a stacked photograph that is a blending oour dierent photos, each ocused on dierent areas o thescene. As you can see, at least the main subject (the variouserns) are in ocus. But notice the erns midway between theront and back erns are somewhat out o ocus. In s tackedocus, unless you shoot hundreds o photos, not everythingwill be in ocus, but you can choose what is and what is not

in ocus. Here the two groups o erns (ront and back) arein ocus, which makes or a nice eect.

As you look at this photo, see how appealing it is to havethings in ocus and to be able to look around the scene asopposed to being denied that reedom by having some areaso the photo out o ocus.

I point this out because I believe that ocus stacking or ocusbracketing will (in time) become at least as important to usas HDR or exposure bracketing have up to this point.

Camera makers may eventually even include ocus bracket-ing as a eature where, perhaps, we ocus on the ront andback areas o any scene or object and the camera produces aseries o bracketed photos with the ocus at dierent layersbetween the two points we set. We would tell the camerahow many layers or photos we want. Tis could be very use-ul, because one o the problems o ocus stacking is takingthe photos ast enough to capture the images beore changesin lighting, etc. set in.

So ar, the results I am getting are very ple asing to me. Teexample used here gives you some idea o what a stackedphoto can look like. In act, urther on we will look at a

bunch o stacked photos, so that you can get an idea owhat they look like and what subjects lend themselves toocus stacking.

Front in Focus Rear in Focus

Focus Stacking: An Example Stacked Photo

Th A t f F St kF St ki g A E l St k d Ph t


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Focus Stacking Software

Tere are a number o sotware applications that do ocusstacking, and probably more will be coming along. I prob-ably dont have time to learn them all, but at the same timeI would like to know which ones work the best or my pur-poses, which are small to mid-sized stacks o close-up andmacro subjects. I only need one g ood one, but to nd thatI have had to experiment. Tat being said, here is a briesummary o three o the main contenders, Adobe Photo-shop, Zerene Stacker, and Helicon Focus. Perhaps this w illsave you some time and expense.

Let me start right o by popping one big bubble, the ideathat you can do quality ocus stacking without any ever

retouching. No sotware I have tried will do that, andhere is the main reason why. Focus stacking (short o aninnite-numbered stack) by denition leaves out o perectocus whatever areas are between the ocus l ayers. I youhave layers, you have something between the m that is notin perect ocus, theoretically at least.

I you want a perectly smooth image, one with nothinglet out, well, that is your standard traditional photo. How-ever, the traditional photo has a single point o ocus. Evena very wide-angle lens, while having everything more inocus than narrower lenses, still has areas o ocus and areasout-o-ocus. Tat is the reality.

Focus stacking by denition is a orm o sampling, just likewe sample sound or video rames. Streaming them together(digitally) produces the eect o seamless music or motionpictures, but in reality they are still a series o samples that

only give us the impression o seamlessness. We live in aworld o impressions.

Tereore no ocus-stacking sotware will be without ar-tiacts, however small or dicult to detect they might be.Even i you string 200 layers o images together, there willbe minute discrepancies, although we may not be able todetect them with the unaided eye. Few o us may want todo 200-layer stacks, as they generally require a studio, aocus rail, perhaps lights, etc. Many o us want to be out inthe meadows and woods, not in the studio.

My point is that to stack ocus and expect no faws is anoxymoron, conceptually. Te question is what sotwaregives me what I need with the least amount o compro-mise. With that in mind, lets look at three o the majorocus-stacking applications:

Adobe Photoshop CS5 (CS5)Zerene Stacker 1.2 (ZS)Helicon Focus 5.1 (HF)

Note the acronyms, which I will be us ing in this article. Allthree o these applications are capable o producing accept-able stacked images that range in quality rom moderate toexceptional. As mentioned, none o this stacking sotwareis equivalent to a point-and-shoot camera, in that you pressa button and can count on a perect or even a good stackedphoto every time. In other words, s ome operator judgment

and experience will be required, how much depends uponhow perect a stack will satisy you.

I can testiy that any search or perection will lead to agreater expenditure o time, learning, and experience. Andstacked photos that we nd satisying today probably willnot satisy us a little arther down the road. Tere is botha learning and a perception curve to ocus stacking in myexperience.

The Time it Takes

Lets start with time. How long does it take to align andblend a stack o images in these three programs? BothZerene Stacker and Helicon Focus are ast, really, reallyast compared to Adobe Photoshop CS4/CS5. I anything,

Photoshop CS5 takes longer than CS4. For example, astack o 8 images took between 30-40 seconds in both ZSand HF, but took over 28 minutes in CS5. Folks, that is abig dierence!

And a stack o 36 photos in CS5 sent me to bed and inthe morning it was still chugging away. I nally just gaveup and shut down the program. So, i you want real-timeresults in this lietime, Photoshop CS5 is probably not theprogram to use.

Processing stacked photos at the end o the day is timeconsuming and requires a certain amount o care andawareness. I you already own Photoshop, play aroundwith short stacks to see the results, but i you are seriousabout ocus stacking, you will be old beore your stacksprocess. At my age I dont have that kind o time.

Pricing (in U.S. dollars)Adobe Photoshop CS5 (Mac and PC)

Well, at a cost o some $660, Photoshop CS5 once againbrings up the rear. You can photo stack in both Photo-shop CS4 and CS5, but the results in CS4 really are poor.In CS5, Adobe has nally gotten into the ballpark withZS and HF, but still is listed third in my book due to itstendency to warp the image somewhat. At $660, ew ous will spring or that just to stack ocus. O course, i wealready have CS5, check it out.

As or pricing or Zerene Stacker and Helicon Focus, theyare less expensive that Photoshop, but have caveats o theirown.

For example, Zerene Focus oers the ollowing:

Proessional Edition $289

Personal Edition $89Student Edition $39

For Helicon Focus, it is a little more complicated:

Helicon Focus Lite (1-year license) $30Helicon Focus Lite (Unlimited license) $115Helicon Focus Pro (1-year license) $55Helicon Focus Pro (Unlimited license) $200Helicon Focus Pro X64 (Unlimited license) $250

Focus Stacking: An Example Stacked Photo

The Art of Focus StackFocus Stacking: An Example Example Stacked Photo with Zerene Stacker PMax


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The Art of Focus StackFocus Stacking: An Example Example Stacked Photo with Zerene Stacker, PMax

The Fine Print: Zerene Stacker (PC only)

With Zerene Stacker any version gets you unlimited use orthat version in perpetuity and its upgrades ree. I a new ver-sion comes up, ZS says When version 2.0 becomes avail-able, new licenses will be made available at attractive up-grade pricing.

As ar as I can tell, all versions are identical. Tere are nodierences between levels. Tey state that the proessionalversion is or those who use it to make money, the personalor those who use it or satisaction, and the student versionis or individuals enrolled in a degree or certicate program.You can use ZS on more than one computer as ar as I un-derstand.

The Fine Print: Helicon Focus (PC Only)

With HF, it is more complicated. You can buy in cheaperthan ZS, but the license only lasts a year. I doubt any ous like that idea. So, the HF Pro version at $200 gets youinto the game and provides the retouching unctions batchmore, and some other eature which are not in the Liteversion. Well, I already stated that all o these s tacking sot-ware require some retouching rom time to time, so (IMO)that option does not work or me.

So I had to buy the $250 version or the reasons just givenAND because that is the only version that takes advantageo the 64-bit chip on my PC and or those o you with 32-bit PCs, to overcome the 3Gb address space or Windows32-bit applications. HF does allow you to use it on up toour computers, as long as you only use one computer at a

time.The Software Results

Tis is the section that is most important, but also whereit gets more complicated. All three programs can produceacceptable results, with Photoshop coming in third everytime, and Zerene Stacker and Helicon Focus vying or topdog, depending on the attributes o a particular stack.

Adobe Photoshop CS5

I previously said that unlike Photoshop CS4, which did notproduce acceptable results much o the time, that CS5 isvery much better. It is better, aside rom a tendency to actu-ally warp the entire photo, changing the shape o whateverfower, bug, etc. you are working with at times. For manywild things, the amount o change is not enough to totallyreject the photo, but or product photography the warping

is denitely not acceptable. And the cost o the sotware issomething to consider, but most o all CS5s inability toprocess stacks in a timely manner makes it not usable orme, at least or stacks o any size. Tereore I cannot recom-mend this sotware at this time or ocus stacking, althoughAdobe has made improvements between CS4 and CS5.

Helicon Focus

HF is the astest o the applications I have tested, i onlybecause it accepts RAW (native) ormat, which shaves sometime o the process and simplies it a bit or me. Also, a loto time and consideration has gone into creating HeliconFocus and this sotware is o proessional quality and eel. Itis easy to use.

You can drag and drop your les into HF or just point to aolder and have them loaded. I have not ound an easy wayto select all the les in a older in a fash, so i you know howto do that, let me know. Right now I have to select the rst,hold down the shit key, and select the last, but it should bemuch easier to select the whole group.

HF oers two stacking methods, Method-A and Method-B,but Method-B seems to be the only one I am using so arthat works as I like it, since it produces the sharpest results.Method-A is said to work with contrast only, but I have notound it useul yet. And HF is ast, which is wonderul.

Te results are very proessional, but like all ocus stackingsotware oten need touching up. HF does provide retouch-ing sotware, but only in the more expensive versions. Teretouch eature in HF is (or me) awkward and not nearlyas intuitive to use as Zerene Stacker, so that is a disappoint-ment. It does work, but I nd mysel not looking orwardto using it with joy.

HF ocus supports ProPhotoRGB and the color seems to begood. Helicon Focus is a solid program o proessional qual-ity and I can highly recommend it, although I nd myselpreerring Zerene Stacker most o the time, or reasons to bepresented now.

Zerene Stacker

Zerene Stacker, like Helicon Focus, is ast, easy-to-use, ando a proessional build. And Zerene Stacker accepts whatev-er color space you send it (like ProPhotoRGB) and returnsthe result in the same space. Like HF, Zerene Stacker oerstwo stacking methods, both o which I nd very useul.

Te rst, PMax does an incredible job o stacking photosthat have ne detail. Te bristles and hairs on insects andplants are intelligently handled by PMax, better than eitherCS5 or HF. Tat is the good news. Te bad news is that thisgreater denition comes at the price o some added noise inthe photo and some loss o more subtle color.

For many photos, this noise is not signicant, but or someit is. Te loss o subtle color is also not important, unless youare looking at something like the tiniest color shit, in whichcase something is lost. I want to state this but, in practice,I tend to not mind these problems as they are minimal ormost o my work.

Tereore I nd that I use PMax most o the time now be-cause it gives me the kind o stacked look I want, my ideao what a stacked photo should look like. When there is toomuch noise, then I run the second method, DMap.

DMap does not introduce noise and holds the colors per-



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The Art of Focus Stackectly. It has the downside o (at times) having more artiactsthan does PMax, so photos done in DMap may require someretouching. As mentioned, I tend to use PMax unless I amunhappy with the result, in which case I send it to DMap.

Te retouching eature in Zerene Stacker is a brilliant achieve-ment, so easy to use and intuitive that my rst thought wasWhy in the world has Adobe not bought this technology,sent Rik Littleeld to the Bahamas or lie, and included itin Photoshop. With ZS, you just move through your stack,nd the rame with the part o the image as you want it, andjust paint with a brush over the original. In a second, itsperect.

With Zerene Stacker, you can drag and drop les into the

program and just run the stacker.Summary

As mentioned, I am dumbounded at the lack o attentionPhotoshop has given ocus stacking in terms o speed and re-sults. Tat being said, both Helicon Focus and Zerene Focusdo an excellent job at stacking photos. Either one will giveyou good results.

Personally I tend to use Zerene Stacker or the ollowing rea-sons: It is much less expensive or the ull version. It pro-vides two methods that I actually use (with HF, I use onlyone), and the PMax method in ZS (although not perect) isunique to this kind o sotware, as ar as I know. No one el seoers it. No one gets e very hair on the insect, sort-o-thing.

Te retouching eature in ZS is worth the price o admis-sion by itsel. I can x a nished photo that has a couple o

artiacts in seconds and have a perect image. And last, thesupport rom ZS has been fawless.

Let me end by reiterating my opening caution, that noocus-stacking sotware is as simple as point-and-shoot orpress-a-button. I you are serious about ocus stacking, youwill have to do some retouching and ddling with stacks.Luckily both Helicon Focus and Zerene Stacker allow you todo this. I would like to hear your thoughts and suggestions,as I am still very much on a learning curve here, although isseems to be an exponential curve.

I you want backup photos or this, I could put some togeth-er showing what each o these programs can and cannot do.

ZS and HF have taken some o the adventure out o o-cus stacking. With Abode Photoshop CS4, getting a goodstacked photo was like looking or 4-lea clovers. ZS and HFlet us get one almost every time.

Here are six comparison images using Helicon Focus (Meth-od B) and Zerene Stacker (PMax). Hopeully, you can seeor yourselves the good, bad, and ugly in the various photos.For each photo, the Zerene Stacker is shown rst, ollowedby the same image in Helicon Focus. No retouching wasdone, although some minimal exposure adjustments andsome sharpening were added to all.

The Art of Focus StackZerene Stacker, PMax Helicon Focus, Method B, Radius 16, Smoothing 1


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Looks pretty good Details good, but posterization in the background



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, , , , g

Looks pretty good Details good, but leaf in upper right not-so-good



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2424 Looks pretty good Looks pretty good



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2626 Looks pretty good Details good, but posterization in the background

The Art of Focus Stack12-Stack PhotoThe Good, the Bad, and the Ugly


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Te ollowing six two-page spreads will really let you knowwhether you want to play around with ocus stacking ornot. Going in, you should know upront what the advan-tages and disadvantages o ocus stacking are.

Any stacked photo, in particular a short stack, is at best acomprise, an attempt to blend the sharper parts o a serieso photos into a single photo. As with all compromises, thecomplete truth by denition is violated, hopeully in as ewways as possible, but some inormation is lost because weare selecting layers o the photo rather than a single shot.

Tis is why I say that short-stacked photos are the photog-raphers impression o the subject. Tey combine a serieso desirable photo layer/highlights into a single photo. Asocus stackers, we choose to create an artully-fawed photothat gives a more desirable impression that any single-ocusphoto. Tat is the theory and this is where the art comesin. Te art o ocus stacking is to sample ocus eectively sothat the nished photo provides more inormation than anysingle-layer photo might.

And by inormation, I dont mean just the pixels in thephoto. A single-shot traditional photo oers that. Focusstacking (short-stack) attempts to sample the subject se-lectively, bringing dierent areas o the photo into h igherocus, and ignoring the rest.

Beginning ocus stackers naturally try to get everything theycan into ocus, because it is a relie rom traditional photosthat dictate one main ocus area. It is un to nally see allthat ocus clarity. But as time goes by, just pure ocus (likewith a rack) is not only very time consuming, but is not al-

ways satisying. In addition, the existence o artiacts at closeinspection can be discouraging. In the end, ocus stackingis impressionistic, a creative eort on our part to present asubject as we experience it.

In the ollowing pages one stacked photo is compared atdierent stacking rates to an un-stacked traditional photo.For this example, I am using a 12-stacked photo taken inthe wild, but with the help o a light tent to make sure thatno wind was moving the subject, which in this case is theDogtooth Violet (also called rout Lily), one o our mostlovely spring fowers. Tis one is getting ready to open. Teorest foors are literally covered with the mottled leaveso this plant in springtime, and rom all those leaves somesmaller number o fowers bloom each year.

welve stacks is a bunch, enough to embrace quite a widerange, rom the ront lea tips in the close oreground, thefower itsel, to the back lea leaning the other way quite areach.

At rst glance, things are in ocus, rom the ront to theback. Note the tips o the leaves, the top o the fower, thestems, and even some o the dry tree leaves making up thebackground which I purposely did not drill down on, pre-erring some out-o-ocus areas.

Te photo looks pretty good. I have not color corrected itor anything else, other than a little bit o sharpening. I will

er, the stems, and even some o the dry tree leaves makingup the background which I purposely did not drill downon, preerring some out-o-ocus areas.

Te photo looks pretty good. I have not color corrected itor anything else, other than a little bit o sharpening. I willbe showing you three separate photos. Te rst will be the12-stack photo, the next will be a shorter stack o our othe photos rom the 12-stack shot, se lected based on gettingas much o the photo in ocus as a 4-stack will allow, andthe last photo is a traditional non-stacked photo or com-parison.

For each photo, there will be two-2-page spread, with theentire photo on the right, and close-up photos o the fowerhead and stem on the let side.

Tere are six two-page spreads to look at, so take your timeand look closely or this is the kind o compromise you willhave to get used to i you are interested in ocus stacking us-ing a short stack.

The Impression

Looking at the photo on the right, the impression is o awoodland fower remarkably in ocus, rom the tip o theront leaves (reaching out toward you), to the tip o the backlea, leaning quite away rom the fower. And the fower it-sel is sharp, or so is the impression. And impression is whatshort stacking is all about.

Now work through the next twelve pages and photos, not-ing that in reality parts o the photo suer blurring rom theocus-stacking process itsel. As mentioned, this is no windhere, at least that I could see. I am using Adobe PhotoshopCS4 to align and blend the stack, so there may be othersotware that can do a better job o avoiding artiacts. Butno sotware can avoid generating artiacts, unless you wantto use a rack mounted camera and shoot 100+ photos oreach stacked photo. Even then there will be problems.

I your resulting stacked photo has too many artiacts, tryplaying with the stack, stacking dierent combinations,choosing layers which have the things you most want in o-cus. Tis takes time, so take the time to explore. You will besurprised at how you can pull a good stacked photo out owhat appeared as a throw-away. And i there are still peskyblurred areas o a photo you really l ove, take it into Photo-shop and use the Clone Stamp tool to careully repair theblur. For those special shots, it is worth the eort.

The Three People to Impress

Tey are, o course, Me, Mysel, and I, the ones who reallycare about my photos. My wie, kids, and riends only wantto see a very ew photographs. Ater maybe ten or twelve,they start to look around. And I have 70,000 plus. Otherphotographers like this, but want to change that, etc. Tisleaves just me as the one who sees it all, takes the photos,stacks them, and enjoys them. I I am happy with a photo,warts and all, that is enough.

The Art of Focus StackClose-up of 12-Stack Photo 12-Stack Photo


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12-stack Photo Artifacts

Look careully along both the rightand let sides o the fower s tem. Seethe uzzy out-o-ocus areas. Tesewere not caused by movement, butare artiacts o the articial aligningand blending o so many stacks.



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Look careully on both sides wherethe fower joins the top o the stem.See the blurry areas on both sides.Also notice the blurred tip o theright end o the fower at the bot-tom.



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Look careully along both the rightand let sides o the fower stem.See the uzzy out-o-ocus areas,although less then the 12-stackversion.. Tese were not caused bymovement, but are artiacts o thearticial aligning and blending o somany stacks.



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Look careully on both sides wherethe fower joins the top o the stem.See the blurry areas on both sides.Also notice the blurred tip o theright end o the fower at the bot-tom. About the same as the 12-stackversion.

The Art of Focus StackClose-up of Traditional One-shot Photo Traditional One-shot Photo


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Traditional 1-shot Photo

Tere are no artiact blurs in thisphoto, but the entire stem and leabehind it is blurred.

The Art of Focus StackClose-up of Traditional One-shot Photo Traditional One-shot Photo


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Traditional 1-shot Photo

Tere are no artiact blurs in thisphoto. Te fower is reasonably inocus, moreso around where thefower joinds the stem. Te bottomo the fower is less in ocus as youcan see.

The Art of Focus StackAligning the Stack Can Produce Crazy-looking Results Crop It and You Get a Normal PhotoProblems with Focus Stacking Cropped Photo


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Whatever It Takes

Dont ask me w hy Photoshop de-cided to bend over backward toalign this stack like this, causing thisodd-shaped pattern to emerge. Teprogram has a mind o its own andthis kind o result is common us-ing the Align command. In somecases, the twisted shape actaullyaects the entire photo, widening orshortening the image.

However, just crop the nishedphoto and it looks pretty nornal.Tis photo has not been retouched.

The Art of Focus StackAnother Pattern from the Aligning Process Crop It and You Get a Normal PhotoProblems with Focus Stacking Cropped Photo


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Twisted

Here is another example o thegyrations that the Photoshop alignprocess sometimes goes through toline up all the layers o the stack.

Just crop the nished photo and it

looks pretty nornal. Tis photo hasnot been retouched..

The Art of Focus StackStand Align Marks Crop It and You Get a Normal PhotoProblems with Focus Stacking Cropped Photo


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Normal Align Marks

Notice the marks on all our edgeso this photo. Tey look like in-dentations. You will nd these onalmost every stacked photo and theyare the result o the programs align-ing unction as it positions layer overlayer and orces them to line up.

Tey can take many orms, andaside rom the indentation-like

marks, you oten will also haveblurred or out-o-ocus areas run-ning along the border. otally nor-mal. You just have to crop them out.

The Art of Focus StackA Focus Too Far No Way to Save This PhotoOne Photo with Near Focus Stacked Photo - Too Many Artifactgs


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Focus Limits

I wanted to pick up the branch inthe ront, but also the rose h ip inthe back. Problem is that in this casethere are several inches or more odistance between the ront matterand the back. Te resulting compos-ite was just too much o a stretch.

Te moral o the story is: chooseyour limits, i you expect them toconverge. Tis photo did not makeit.

The Art of Focus StackResampling Stacks Solution: Shorten the StackProblems with Focus Stacking Stacked Photo with Fewer Frames


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Use a Shorter Stack

Just because you took six photosdoes not mean you have to put allsix in the stack. In this case, I ranthe ull stack, but look at the halosaround the upper leaves. No good.Tere was obviously either windor to much perspective change inocusing.

By dropping the last ew layers, Ilose ocus in the lower stem, butmostly get rid o the halos on theleaves. I can always say that thelower stem is good bokah!

Movement Causes Artifacts

Focus Stacking is primarily or still lie pho-tography, where nothing is moving. Move-ment causes artiacts in the nished photothat (usually) cannot be remedied, with theresult that the photo is not considered sat-isactory. Tis is not to say that ocus stack-ing should not be used or nature photog-raphy with live subjects, but just that youwant to catch your critters at rest, holdinga pose long enough or you to shoot a ewrames at dierent ocus points.

Focus stacking with moving subjects canmake or interesting impressionistic or

expressionistic photos, but most o thesewould all into the category o artisticexperimentation rather than nature photog-raphy.

The Art of Focus StackSublte Changes Enchance the FocusSingle Photo with Out-of-Focus Stem 2-Stack Photo Brings More of Stem in Focus


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Small Gains

On the let is a photo with no ocusstacking. Nice, but I want to addjust a little more depth o eld, so Imake a short stack.

On the right is the result, with in-creased ocus up top, but still somenice out-o-ocus area in the lowerstem. Focus stacking need not be

at terminator orce, but can be usegently or enhancement.

The Art of Focus StackForeground Material Notice Artifact in Upper-middle Right SideProblems with Focus Stacking Artifacts in Stacked Photo Requires Cropping


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Intervening Matter

Tere are two problems here, andonly urther cropping will correctthem. In the red boxes is a branchin the oreground, and this branchmoves dramatically between the twolayers, which suggests it is too arout ront o the wild leek shoots thatare just coming up.

In the resulting composite, the twobranches dont align but blur andsmear on the photo. Also note thatin the ront lower-let corner is a

stick that I ailed to get in ocus.Not good.

One solution is to crop out the badparts, but some orethought on mypart would have avoided this.

Layer 1 Layer 2

Front Matter

I have learned to inspect my shotcareully beore I begin shooting tosee i there is any intervening matter.I there is something between thecamera and the subject:

(1) Move the camera.

(2) I not destructive, careullyremove whatever is obstructing theview.

(3) Oten I gently bend backbranches (withough breaking them)until they are just out o the shot.

(4) I dont do invasive removal, likeuprooting plants, bulldozing, ordetonations.

Possible Crop

The Art of Focus StackWater is Easy Merge (no align) Top and Bottom of Water AreasStream Bottom and Surface Reection Shots Resulting 2-Photo Stack


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Two Layers

Clear water makes a great 2-layerstack. Simple shoot one layer withthe bottom o the stream in ocusand another with whatever is refect-ed on the top surace, and combinethem.

Here there is a sunlit stream bed,with overhead trees and blue skyrefected on the surace. Te com-bination allows you to ocus on thebottom or the top refection, making

or a creative and interesting eect.No need to align this type o shot,just merge.

Photo of Stream Bed Photo of Stream Surface

The Art of Focus StackAnother Example Merge Them with No AlignResulting 2-Photo StackStream Bottom and Surface Reection Shots


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Merge Two Photos

Here is another example o twophotos merged, by with no aligning,since we want to keep the suraceimage separate rom the image othe bottom o the stream.

Photo of Stream Bed Photo of Stream Surface

The Art of Focus StackToo Much Focus Traditional Foreground and BackgroundStacked Photo Looking into Tree Branches - Too Busy Traditional One-shot Photo


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All-Focus Not Always Good

I also nd that just because I can bringthe whole rame to ocus, does not mean I

should or that the resulting photo will lookgood. Full-rame ocus can be disorienting,such as a case where you are looking througdierent layers o tree branches, and lose allsense o layers and distance, which is justwhat makes the shot interesting in the rstplace.

Focus stacking can remove the sense o dis-tance, since the eye is used to having a ocupoint and the rest o the image more-or-lessout o ocus. Tis can make or an u nusualsense o space and spaciousness, which caneither enhance a photo or make it seemclaustrophobic. Some scenes are not worthstacking, such as the one show here, exeptperhaps to achieve an unusual eect. Also,

there are tons o artiacts in the photo on thlet.

The Art of Focus StackRoundness Does Not Short Stack Well Layers Stack WellRound or Spherical Surfaces Show Artifacts Subjects with Edges Stack Well


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The Dreaded Sphere

I you use rack-mounted ocus, antake micro steps, with dozens o laers, the smoothly rounded objectslike globes, bubbles, and so on canbe resolved. But i you are taking ahandul o shots, using a short stacthen take caution when you en-counter rounded objects. Here is aexample:

On the right you have a perectsubject or ocus stacking, a line oclearly-dened levels, each one thayou can ocus on as a layer or youstack. Te result is very satisying.

However, on the let are some watdroplets on the hood o a car, whihood is not only on an incline, buitsel slightly convex. Notice the oo-ocus (OOF) areas in the waterdroplets. Tis is because the smootcurvature o the droplets, each di-erent, would require micro ocus-ing (many, many layers) to capture

all the possibilities in the curvaturWith ours short-stack approach,sampling areas, by denition we wmiss the in-between areas, with thresultant OOF blur. Keep this inmind.

The Art of Focus StackRound-shaped, but with Clear Layers Michigan Orchid with Globe-shaped Flower

Another Example

Round Subjects with Edges Stack Well Spherical Subjects Require a Larger Stack


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Another Example

Te pine cone on the let has around shape, but there is plenty toocus on and highlight.

However, the Michigan orchid be-low has a large round-shaped fow-er, so this shot required MORE thaaverage layers in order not to haveblurred spots on the curvature.

The Art of Focus StackThe PhotographerPlaying With Stacks

Back on the computer, ater a days shoot, you process astack in Photoshop and look at the results Some stacks

Minimal Frames

Forget about the whole sequence. Go into the layers and just the layers that best put the subject into ocus

Additional Focus-stacking Considerations


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stack in Photoshop and look at the results. Some stackswork and some have too many artiacts, motion that youdidnt see at the time, areas that Photoshop could not dis-tinguish properly, etc.

Some stacks are simply beyond use or repair, but most arenot, so dont just give up on a stack because at rst glance ithas problems. ry to see what is causing the problem. Hereare some things you should check out beore giving up on astack.

Inherently Flawed

Dont orget that unless you are on a ocus rack and takinga huge number o photos under essentially laboratory con-ditions that photostacking, by denition, is fawed. What Imean by that is: because ocusing uses a short-stack means,you are sampling the ocus here and there rather thanseamlessly photographing and merging the entire rame. Bydesign, you are leaving out many areas o the photo whichare not treated as a ocus point. Tis is a choice you make.

An Art, Not a Science

Tere will be areas that are (how ever so slightly) out oocus. Te art o ocus stacking is to make these areas asunobtrusive as possible, selecting what you eel are the keyareas in the photo that tell the story as you see it, areas thatyou want to be in sharp ocus.

Focus stacking, at least in my experience, is more o an artrather than a science. Slavishly using a ocus rack to ob-tain perect ocus through a stack o hundred or so photos

simply is not interesting to me, and way too time consum-ing. I am happy to look at the deep stack photos that oth-ers make. Most o all, rack-ocusing is more su ited to thestudio and not the woods and elds. I need to be out therein nature and without too much gear.

Te art in ocus stacking is learning how to give your im-pression o a subject in a e w careully-chosen rames, merg-ing them into a single unied photo that expresses thatimpression. Tat is why ocus stacking is an art and not ascience.

The Bad Frame

Did you include a rame that does not belong in the seriesby mistake? I am surprised at how oten I manage to do thisand, o course, a rame rom a dierent se ries will seriouslyscrew up a stack and make it appear unusable.

Too Many Frames

Just because you took ten rames o the subject does notmean you need all ten or that all ten will resolve, especiallywhen the result shows problems. ry dropping layers, usu-ally rom the back where they matter least and can serve asbokah (nicely out o ocus). Shorten the stack and run itagain. Oten the result can be dierent enough to save theshot.

nd just the layers that best put the subject into ocusthose, oten just two or three. You end up with a moremal photograph, but one with the ess ential subject remably in ocus. Tis is still better than just the one area ocus o a traditional DOF photo.

Run It Again

sometimes i I just run the whole stack again, i will gegood result. I have not idea why this is so, but it is wotry i you love the subject.

Dont Forget the Traditional Photo

And as a last result, use a single rame. Forget about st

ing. One virtue o taking bracketed ocus shots is that,more oten than not, at least one o the rames will beshot you would have taken i you only had one shot traditional photo with one point o ocus. When all eldoes not work, usually there is a single photo that willthe job.

In summary, it is well worth it to spend some time tining with the stack beore you abandon the shot, especi it is a photo you really like.

Short Stacks for Macro, Not Micro

How close is too close? Tat is a question you will ndyoursel answering as you get into ocus stacking. Ocourse, it depends a lot on what lens you are using, buhave ound that trying to ocus on too tiny a part or fgenerally shows poor results. Lets take some examples

Te advantage o traditional one-shot photography is you dont have artiacts, but unless you are photographa two dimensional subject (like a page rom the newspand even then, unless that newspaper is fat and exactlparallel to the plane o the cameras sensor, you automcally have distortion rom perspective. Tat perspectivputs one area o the photo in ocus and throws anotheo ocus to some degree.

O course the eternal quest or the holy grail o deptheld by photographers meets with the disappointmentdiraction exacts its toll o resolution at smaller apertuthus the main reason or ocus stacking. Yet ocus stackas we have pointed out, cannot but ail to capture eveo the subject, but it can manage to ail successully i are careul, resulting in a photo that has the appearancreal depth o eld.

The Art of Focus StackThe PhotographerLandscapes

Focus stacking is probably more successul in enhancingocus in non close up shots like mid range and distant

Looking Close

I you look very closely at any stacked photo, you canits faws however minute Tis is the nature o the be

Additional Focus-stacking Considerations


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ocus in non-close-up shots like mid-range and distantsubjects such as landscapes, where adding even a little moredepth o eld dramatically enhances the shot. Look at thelandscape shots elsewhere in this books or an example othis

Close-up, Macro, and Micro

Where ocus stacking breaks down most visibly is in ex-treme close-up shots, what we would call micro, rather thanmacro shots. When you get this close, you really do needa ocusing rail, studio, lights, and all o that. You can getgreat shots with rail and micro-stepping the ocus, but orme this is a whole other kind o photography than that be-

ing presented here. It really is a science, and not so much anart, although art is involved there too.

Not for Micro Work

For example, shooting a very tiny fower. Being so closeto a subject shows not only any weakness in the lens, butalso weakness in the technique o short-stack ocus photog-raphy. By not covering every millimeter o that scene, weare opening ourselves up to tiny movements o wind andsimply extremes o perspective within the subject matteritsel. Te result is that artiacts are more visible up closethan when we stand back, just l ike some o the French Im-pressionist painters like Monet or Pissarro, which are bestviewed rom a ew eet back, rather than right up close. Teartiacts or artice is absorbed at a distance, but obviouswhen you get too close. Te same goes or ocus stacking

that is not rail mounted and studio bound.I nd this out by trial and error. Sometimes I can get awaywith a lot and at other times, the technique itsel shows itsfaws. Te take away is there are limits to what short-stackocusing will allow. As you get closer and closer, going romclose-up photography to macro photography, or even closerto micro photography, you need more precise control,preerably in exact micro increments to get results. Impres-sionist ocus sampling as we are discussing here doesnt cutit. We would need to be more exact than that.

As mentioned, the science o stepped-rail ocusing doesnot interest me, so I reer you to Google, where you cannd any number o tutorials on rail stacks requiring bothscience and art. Striking photographs, yes, but sometimes alittle too clinical or my taste.

its faws, however minute. Tis is the nature o the beand just part o the deal when you use short stacks. Msuch faws are usually embraced by the overall enhancsharpness o the stacked photo and dont stand out. Sare glaring and cause the photo to be rejected. Still otcan be xed in Photoshop easily, i they are ew. I thlegion, there is not much you can do but enjoy it in tabstract, faws and all. Ten you really are really imprsionist! Frankly I am continually amazed at how wellstacked photos work out i you take some care with toriginal shots.


Another Example

Single Frame (notice distance is blurry) Stacked Photo (notice more clarity througout)


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p

The pine cone on the left has round shape, but there is plen

to focus on and highlight.

However, the Michigan orch

below has a large round-shapefower, so this shot require

MORE than average layers

order not to have blurred spoon the curvature.

The Art of Focus StackEntire Stack Processed (note blurry areas)

Partial Stack (note: clarity achieved by fewer photos)


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The Art of Focus StackStacked Focus of Small Flower (note artifacts) Standard Photo Not Stacked (note more clarity)


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The Art of Focus StackTradition One-shot Photo (distance is not clear) Stacked Photo (much more clarity throughout)


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The Art of Focus StackEquipment for Close-up and Macro Photography


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Tripods Are Key

Te long and the short o it is that you need a tripod to do

accurate ocus stacking. I know there are a ew photogra-phers out there who claim to ocus stacks handheld, butthat is why there are ew o them. Personally I would not(could not) do ocus stacking without a good tripod. Younot only need a tripod, you need a GOOD tripod. I boughtthree cheap ones beore I had the common sense to get onegood one. Te cheap ones are in storage. As mentioned, Icant even sell them, so do yoursel a avor and get a decenttripod.

And, i you are a hiker or woods-walker, get a light tripod,preerable one made with carbon-ber legs on it. A good tri-pod becomes like a third arm to a macro shooter. I seldomhit the elds without one.

These Photographs

Pictured here is the primary Nikon equipment I use most o

the time: Nikon D3s and Nikon D3x bodies, each sh ownhere with a Voigtlander 125mm /2.5 APO-Lanthar lens, aMarkins Q3 Ball-Head, MC-30 Remote Release, and set-ting on Gitzo carbon-ber tripods G2531 (3-leg) andF1228 (4-legs and center column). Tese tripods and ballheads are as light as possible, yet sturdy enough to hold thequite-heavy nikon cameras and lenses.

Macro and Close-up Equipment

Tis section will be a painul read or many o you. Equip-

ment is expensive, and it seems that all beginners start outtrying to cut corners and end up paying more or their stuthan proessionals, because they buy the cheap stu, are un-happy with it, and end up getting the good stu too, thusbuying twice. I certainly did this and regret it to this day.

All the pros advised me to just buy the good stu right o,but I did not listen. Ater all, I knew best, and was not surethat this more detailed photography stu was something Iwould really get into, so I bought cheap, and then boughtit all again. Te smart money buys the good stu and, iyou dont like photography, you can actually sell the goodbrands and get some money back.

I cringe when I come across some o my early tripods thatI bought trying to save a dime, and then ultimately oundclumsy, heavy, and ugly. Tey are worth nothing and sit un-used (and unsalable!), taking up storage space. Tereore, I

am only going to tell you about the good stu and why it isworth the money. You make up your own mind and ollowyour own budget. As mentioned, I didnt listen, and it costme plenty, not to mention the suering and discouragemento using poor equipment, which is priceless.

The Art of Focus StackBall Head

Another item that you dont want to cheap-out on is a goodball head or the tripod on which your camera sits. I shouldknow; I have a whole shel o lousy ball heads that I bought

Equipment for Close-up and Macro Photography


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know; I have a whole shel o lousy ball heads that I boughttrying to avoid buying one good one. I have ones with apistol-grip handle, ones with two handles, etc., a total wasteo time and money. Ball heads are expensive, and the goodones are brands like Really Right Stu (RSS), Kirk, Arca-Swiss, and Markins.

I use the Markins Q-Ball Q3 (shown on right), which sellson Ebay or about $260, and I eel that are every bit as goodas the much more expensive kinds.

L-Bracket

I hate to keep laying these essentials on you, because it can

be very discouraging to the pocket-book, but it is best toknow the truth sooner, than later:

You need an L-bracket on your camera.

An L-Bracket mounts on your camera body and allows youto quickly change rom the standard horizontal position tovertical position. Te ones shown here are on the lower-let-hand side (and base) o each camera.

For me, the L-bracket is essential, because I l ike to shootvertically most o the time, but have to sw itch in a momentto horizontal or a wider shot. I use Kirk Enterprise L-Bracket and plates. Tey are excellent.

Quick-release Clamps

It is not enough to have a ball head on your tripod. You alsohave to be able to get your camera on and o the tripod.You can screw it on and o, but that takes a lot o timeand sooner or later you are gonna mess up the threads inthe base o your camera, and have a real problem on yourhands. You need to be able to get that camera on and othe tripod in seconds, not minutes o umbling with thumbscrews.

My quick-release o choice is the Swiss-Arca style, as usedby Kirk Enterprises, Really-Right Stu, and o course Swiss-Arca-style plates. You need one. Te quick release shownhere are built into the Markins ball head and receive theL-brackets, which are thumb-tightened on.

Remote Shutter Release

Another (or me) essential accessory is the remote shutter re-lease, which attaches to the camera and allows me to releasethe camera without having to touch the cameras shutter-re-lease button and potentially cause vibrations. Remote shut-

ter release cords or Nikon are available on Ebay or verylittle, and are more than a little helpul. Tey can be seenhere dangling rom the right side o the cameras.

Camera Bodies

Tere actually are many cameras that will do a good job.

Ultimately, ater you nd you like photography, you wanta DSLR (Digital Single Lens Refex) camera, with a 100%viewnder (shows the whole image, not just most o it),with a large LCD preview window, and preerably withmirror lockup (will explain in a moment). Another eatureI could NO do without is the ability to see a histogram othe RGB levels on the LCD at the rear o the camera body.Let me go over all o this in more detail.

For mysel, I love Nikon cameras, but Canon, Panasonic,Sony, and others also make ne DSLRs. It is just that Nikoncameras are better looking and, well, just better. Suityoursel.

Viewnders

DSLR cameras oer viewnders that are larger and smaller,meaning that some cameras show most (but not all o therame), while better ones do show all o it. I you can, get acamera that will show ALL o the rame, a viewnder thatalso is as clear and bright as possible. I would not considertrying to do ocus stacking using a camera with only anLCD preview window, as in: a camera without a real view-nder. You will be doing all o your work looking throughthe viewnder, so get a camera with a large clear viewnder.Tat is my point.

When you look through the viewnder o the camera anocus on your subject, you can see where your ocus is, ocourse, but not how much more (the DOF) o the objecalso on ocus. Pressing the DOF Preview button on a caera stops the lens down to whatever aperture you have seand allows you to see (although oten in dim light) exachow much o the total object is in ocus your depth oeld. So, while not a show-stopper, a DOF Preview butis VERY helpul to the close-up photographer.

Cameras with a mirror-lock up are to be preerred becauit allows you to lock the mirror up beore the shot. Othewise the slap o the mirror can cause vibrations that resothrough the camera body and blur the image you are tryto take.

Ready to Rock

Given all the above equipment, you have what you needto hit the trails and stack photos. You might also want todecide how much stu you want to carry with you thro

the woods and over hill and dale. Tings get really heavyast ater a mile or so. And I am talking about what youwant to carry ASIDE rom your camera, ball head, lens, tripod, which you will probably want to have with you atimes.

Depth of Field Preview

How wide open or not your lens diaphragm is determines

your depth o eld. I the lens is wide open (smallest aper-ture number, like F/2.8), you have the most light-gatheringability or that particular lens, but your Depth-o-Field(DOF) will be razor thin. In other words, aside rom oneplane in ocus, everything else is out-o-ocus. When yourlens is closed down to the smallest apertures (highest aper-ture number, like /22), you have the least light coming intothe lens, but the greatest DOF.

When you look through the viewnder o your camera ora preview o a shot, the lens is always orced wide open, soyou get a very bright image, which is needed to ocus prop-erly. However, when you actually take the photo, your lenswill be automatically stopped down to the actual apertureyou set, and the photo taken. Tat actual aperture may beso small (and dark) to your eye, that you could not see wellto ocus, which is why the viewnder always shows the lens

wide open.However, especially in ocus stacking, you can need to knowhow much DOF eld you already have. I you already haveenough DOF, perhaps you dont need to ocus stack or thisphoto. Some o the better cameras have a Depth-o-Field(DOF) Preview button, which can be a great help, espe ciallyin close-up and macro photography, where you want toknow how much o that bug or fower actually is already inocus.

The Art of Focus StackClose-up and macro lenses generally are labeled as such,using the words macro or micro, so you need to di-erentiate between (or example) a 105mm (portrait) lensrom a 105mm (macro) lens, although the macro lens can

appears to have great depth o eld, i all has been dorectly.

Users o Adobe Lightroom 2.0 (and higher) can selectseries o photos in Lightroom and send them to Phot



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also shoot portraits, but not vice versa. A portrait 105mmlens will not shoot macro subjects because its closest-ocusdistance is too ar away or close work. You cant get closeenough to your subjects .

So, you will probably want to get yoursel a lens with atleast some macro capability.

Te Quest or Depth o Field

As long as there have been cameras and lenses, photog-raphers have struggled to achieve greater depth o eld(DOF). When a lens is wide open, the DOF is very shal-

low, which means that, at best, you can expect to have sharpocus only in one plane o the photo. Te rest o the ramewill be more or less out o ocus.

As we close down the lens (smaller openings), we achievegreater and greater DOF until a point is reached where theeects o diraction set in and begin to destroy the overallsharpness o the photo. So photographers are caught be-tween the devil and the deep blue sea, trapped by almost noDOF at wide apertures or loss o sharpness when stoppeddown too ar. Tat has been the traditional problem.

We all seem to like to see photos that embrace greater DOFand, with the advent o ocus stacking, this is becomingincreasingly possible. Focus stacking has been going on or along time, but limited to those photographers with enoughtechnical expertise in Photoshop (or other sotware) topainstaking stack layers o photos and then gradually erase

part o dierent layers to reveal those areas o greatest sharp-ness. Each photo becomes a real labor o love and is verytime intensive.

Now that Photoshop CS4 (and other sotware) can do thismore automatically, ocus stacking is increasing coming intoits own. oday (using Photoshop as an example), all that isnecessary is to place the s tack o photos (at dierent ocuspoints) as individual layers and apply two commands to thatstack, Align and Blend.

Te Align command automatically works through thelayers and aligns the subject in each layer so they line up.Once that is done, the Blend layer blends the aligned lay-ers into a single photo, automatically doing what previousphotographers laboriously did by hand. Te resulting imageis a stacked photo, where the stack o individual photos has

been aligned, blended, and reduced to a single photo that

Common Macro Lenses

In the above photo are ten lenses commonly used or macroand close-up work. Most, but not all, are Nikon lenses. Teone marked J consists o two lenses stacked together tomake higher magnication, as listed below. For my work,the most-used lens is ( I), the Voigtlander 125mm /2.5APO-Lanthar, a marvel o a lens. Te other incredible lens(IMO) is (C), the 60mm /4 APO lens rom Coastal Optics.Any o the lenses listed above would be good or macro andclose-up photography.

A. Micro-Nikkor 105mm F/2.8 VR Lens

B. Kiron (Lester A. Dine) 100mm /2.8 Macro

C. Coastal Optics 60mm /4.0 APO

D. Micro-NikKor 55mm P Auto /3.5

E. Micro-Nikkor 60mm /2.8 D Lens

F. Micro-Nikkor 85mm /2.8 PC ilt/Shit Lens

G. Micro-Nikkor 70mm-180mm AF /.5-5.6 D

H. Micro-Nikkor 200m AF F/4 ED-IF Macro

I. Micro Voigtlander 125 F/2.5 Macro APO-Lanthar

J-1. Micro-Nikkor 105mm P F/4 Macro Lens

J-2 Micro-Nikkor 105mm P F/4 Macro Bellows Lens

Most close-up and macro photographers use lenses in the shorttelephoto range, from 60mm to 200mm.

The Lens Is the Thing

Lenses are the heart o photography, IMO, and certainlya good sharp lens is required or decent ocus stacking.And lenses can be expensive, to say the least. Fortunatelyor macro and close-up photography, where we must ocusmanually anyway, we can use older lenses which are readilyavailable at reasonable prices.

Te kind o lens you need depends on the kind o photo-graphing you intend to do. And while ocus stacking can beused or landscape and intermediate distance photography,much o it tends to be done in close-up and macro photog-raphy.

Speaking very generally, most macro and close-up work isdone with short telephoto lenses, rather than wide anglelenses. raditionally, the 50mm lens has been set as the stan-dard, and any lenses smaller than that (24mm, 35mm, etc.)are considered wide angle lenses, while any lenses longer(105mm, 200mm) are considered telephoto lenses.

You can do ocus stacking with almost any kind o lens,including wide angle lenses, with the exception perhaps osheye lenses. And we s hould dierentiate between standardlenses and macro lenses. A macro lens allows you to ocusdown to very short distances rom your subject, providingyou greater magnication and thus huge images o tiny crit-ters like ants, as well as fowers, leaves, etc. Standard lensesdont usually have a ocus distance close enough to do macrophotography, so take note.

p gwhere they can be aligned, blended, and automaticallback into Lightroom, including any adjustments madthe photos in Lightroom. What this means is that ocstacking is now available to a much wider group o usthan in the past. Just as HDR-stitched photos have bvery popular and have their own special look, we caexpect to see ocus stacking ollowing on the same pamore common usage. Focus stacking also has a certathat dierentiates it rom standard photos.

Perhaps camera makers like Nikon may include ocusing (ocus bracketing) in uture camera bodies, just likthey did with aperture bracketing, which is now availTe user would ocus at the ront and the rear o a subindicate how many photos should be stacked, and theera would do the rest. O course, this sounds like a jowould require a tripod. For shots o live subje cts, in-cocus stacking would urther open up this technique,the stacked series would happen at maximum speed. in this text, we will walk through how to use Adobe Pshop to stack photos.

Diffraction

When you camera lens is wide open like F/2.8, there plenty o room or light to enter, and the parallel rayslight more or less stay parallel, with minimal divergenHowever, when you narrow the lens to a tiny opening/22, not only does less light come through, but ater

ing through a small aperture, parallel light rays begindiverge, spread out, and interere with one another.

At small apertures, the light waves get out o phase wanother, pile up in some areas, and cancel each other in other areas. Te net result is that they create a patto bands called the diraction pattern, and this pattimpacts the photo image we are trying to create, causto deteriorate.

Te long and the short o it is that no matter how nyou have or how many megapixels your camera sensodiraction imposes an absolute resolution limit or phdetail that cannot be gone beyond. Diraction automcally smoothes or blurs detail that we have resolved whigher /stop o the lens.

Web Sites for Lenses

Te best web sites to learn the qualities o lenses (in mopinion) are:

Bjrn Rrslett (http://www.naturotogra.com)

Tom Hogan (http://www.bythom.com)

The Art of Focus StackChallenges in Focus Stacking

Focus stacking has a number o distinct challenges, things tokeep in mind when you are learning to use this technique,so lets go over some o them.

but just that you want to catch your critters at rest, hoa pose long enough or you to shoot a ew rames at dent ocus points.

Focus stacking with moving subjects can make or int



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g

Near Focus

A continual problem I have is not having the nearest objectsin ocus. It is an easy mistake to make. O course, i thereis a single object, I dont miss that. But lets say I am pho-tographing a bunch o moss or oliage. Many times, aterthe shoot when I am back on the computer I nd that I didnot get the very most ront matter. It could just be the tipo the top o a ew blades o grass, but it more-or-less ruinsthe shot. So it pays to back o until the entire eld is outo ocus, and then start in until the rst something appears,

and shoot that. Some ocus stackers make a rul e o startingwith an out-o-ocus shot.

With rear ocus, it usually does not matter. We can just calla missed layer in the rear bokah.

A Focus Too Far

Oten we try to get too much o the entire rame in ocus,and it can be just too ar o a reach. I have learned to let therear part o the rame remain somewhat out o ocus, so thatit either is or resembles bokah. Tis brings out the subject inthe oreground that is in ocus all the better, which amountsto traditional photography with just a wee bit more in o-cus.

You will get a eel or how much you can strong-arm theentire rame into ocus. I nd it is better to pick my battlescareully.

All-Focus Not Always GoodI also nd that just because I can bring the whole rame toocus, does not mean I shoul d or that the resulting photowill look good. Full-rame ocus can be disorienting, such asa case where you are looking through dierent layers o treebranches, and lose all sense o layers and distance, which isjust what makes the shot interesting in the rst place.

Focus stacking can remove the sense o distance, since theeye is used to having a ocus point and the rest o the im-age more-or-less out o ocus. Tis can make or an unusualsense o space and spaciousness, which can either enhance aphoto or make it seem claustrophobic. Some scenes are notworth stacking.

Movement

Focus Stacking is primarily or still lie photography, where

nothing is moving. Movement causes artiacts in the n-ished photo that (usually) cannot be remedied, with theresult that the photo is not considered satisactory. Tis isnot say that ocus stacking should not be used or naturephotography with live subjects,

g g jing impressionistic or expressionistic photos, but mosthese would all into the category o artistic experimenrather than nature photography.

Whats Missing?

Usually you wont know until you are home on the coer processing the shots, but here is the rule o thumb: you are shooting 30-40 shots on a ocusing rack setupshooting traditional (one plane o ocus), something wlet out, somewhere. Te skill comes in choosing whatwant in ocus and what i let out will never be missed

Just about every stacked photo I have made has weak missing spots, i not outright blatant artiacts. I generaignore those who insist every speck has to be in ocus are a lousy photographer. Tats asking too much anddenition impossible without shooting hundreds o ptos. Every other possibility has one kind o faw or anoWith ocus stacking, you just have to pick your battle

And as I like to say, ocus stacking (at least the kind I is at heart impressionistic, meaning that I as the photopher choose what to have in ocus and what to ignoreresult (like all photographs) is my impression o the suthe sense o it as I see it. Like HDR and other newer tniques, ocus stacking is just another way to present apression o what you see, in this case by playing with Further on I will illustrate these various problems.

Program Mode

Most cameras nowadays oer you the option o severashooting modes, typically:

Program Mode

Te camera does everything or you and decides whatyour best shot.

Shutter Priority Mode

You set the shutter to what you need, and the camera the rest. For example, in sports events, you need a high(ast) shutter speed to capture the action, while in stillphotography, you can use a much lower shutter speed

Aperture Priority Mode

Here you set the aperture yoursel to gather more or llight, and let the camera do the rest.

Manual ModeIn this mode, the photographer sets everything, the shspeed, the aperture, and the ocus. HIS is the mode erally use and recommend, although you can use any above, with the exception o auto-ocus. Setting apertushutter speed, and ISO limits becomes natural very qu

The Art of Focus StackHistograms

I have been photographing since around 1954, when myather loaned me his Kodak Retina 2A camera or a sum-mer trip. O course, I was shooting lm and dad paid or

Program Mode

Mentioned earlier, most cameras nowadays oer yoution o several shooting modes, typically:

Program Mode



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that and the developing. But the expense o lm and theact that you had to wait days to nd out i your photo evencame out were great inhibitors to my photography experi-mentation. Back then, I used a light meter to determinehow to set my exposure, but even that device (or my inepti-tude) did not guarantee me a decent photo.

In general, I wouldnt spend the money or lm/ developingand I hated the guesswork involved in having no immediatevisible eedback rom each shot I took. With the advent odigital cameras, all that changed.

Now I can aord to shoot as much as I like and the LCDpreview screen gives me instant eedback as to whether Iam in or out o ocus, whether I have too much or too littlelight, and so on. Tere is one eature in these new camerasthat is VERY important to have, and that is visible histo-grams that evaluate exposure. Te RGB histograms amountto a 21st century light meter, one built into the cameraitsel.

Using RGB histograms allows us to tell at a glance wh etherthe photo we just shot is exposed properly or our purposesor whether it is too dark or too light. Histograms make itclear whether we have a lot o clipping going on, whichmeans we have l ost photo inormation that cant be retrievedlater in Photoshop. Tis is something we really need toknow, because i I spend an hour shooting an importantsubject, only to nd out later that all images were severely

overexposed, it is a heartbreaker i I cant repeat the shootdue to circumstances, etc.

Tis is not the place to explain how best to use histograms.Tere are dozens o good tutorials on using histograms onthe web. Just note: when shopping or a camera, get onethat does show you an RGB histogram. Since I dont use au-tomatic ocus, shutter, or aperture, I would be lost withouthistograms.

Focus

In Focus Stacking, auto-ocusing is not used, since autoocusing lets the camera decide on one and only one ocuspoint, and that is that. In ocus stacking, we need manypoints o ocus, and want to set each one ourselves, since thecamera does not have an eye or beauty yet. So you willbe using manual ocus or close-up and ocus stacking.

Program Mode

Te camera does everything or you and decides whayour best shot.

Shutter Priority Mode

You set the shutter to what you need, and the camerthe rest. For example, in sports events, you need a hi(ast) shutter speed to capture the action, while in stiphotography, you can use a much lower shutter spee

Aperture Priority Mode

Here you set the aperture yoursel to gather more or

light, and let the camera do the rest.Manual Mode

In this mode, the photographer sets everything, the ster speed, the aperture, and the ocus. HIS is the mgenerally use and recommend, although you can use the above, with the exception o auto-ocus.

What I Carry in the Field

Aside rom my camera, lens, ball-head, and tripod, I bring much. I sometimes carry an extra battery, an eMemory Card, a couple o light diusers, perhaps onlens, and a plastic shower cap, the ones with an elastiTe shower cap is or, o course, rain showers, at whiI put the cap over the camera and lens to keep it romting wet. I store all o this in a very small over-the-shcamera bag.

The Art of Focus StackI live in Michigan, which is or the most part just fat,since the glaciers moved across it like a snow plow (wayback then) and scraped it fat. With nothing to stop it, likemountains and valleys, we have wind, and more oten thannot.

Tey diuse light over whatever is inside the cube ANDthey stop wind. Tese light tents are all over Ebay, and youcan get a 24 or 30 Light ent or around $30. You willhave to cut the bottom o one o the fat sides out o thetent or it to be used outdoors, and resign dedicate the tent

Wind and Focus Stacking Light Tents


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not.

Wind is a problem or any macro photographer, but a muchgreater problem i you are trying to stack photos, since evena tiny movement results in halos and other artiacts. Teproverbial advice or shooting in wind is either dont shootat all or be patient and wait or a l ull.

Tis is good advice, except where you need to shoot ve orten photos, each at a dierent ocal point. What happens isthat you get two or three shots o and the wind moves thesubject (or parts o the subject) a tiny bit. You dont even seeit because you have your eye to the viewnder, your hand

ocusing, and you mind busy coordinating it all.It actually is worse than this. Te wind doesnt usually justmove one blade o grass or whatever. It moves all kindso things ever so slightly, oten too subtle or you to evencatch, but not too subtle or your lens to catch. Te result isthat all kinds o stu moves around.

Where you gure this out is back home on the computer,while processing the stacks. Photo ater photo has somemovement faw or all kinds o little wind-generated artiacts.Some can be xed in Photoshop, but a lot are not worth x-ing, unless you like being a photo-touchup artist or hoursat a time.

o make things worse, i you are shooting seasonal fowers,the season does not wait or the wind to die down. Manyfowers are in and gone in a ew days. We can schedule time

or shooting, but we cant control the wind, which some-times is strong enough to keep all o the plants dancing ordays at a time. What to do?

One thing we can do (although not ocus stacking) is justuse a higher shutter speed (one that stops motion) and justshoot traditional one-shot photos with as much depth oeld as we can push the aperture. Tere is always that. Or,i you are shooting something like an entire fower thatmoves slowly in the wind and can push the shutter speed upso that the whole fower is caught, SOME stacks will workbecause Photoshop will align the whole fower, shot by shot.Although this approach sometimes works, it seldom workswell and is hardly worth the eort.

Another thing I have tried is to make l ittle stakes and stringlittle panels o cloth on them in an attempt to stop the windrom coming rom coming in. I even bought some smallcollapsible car antennae so the whole thing could be por-table, but the wind came in rom above or rom anywherethat was not covered and did its thing, so this was not asatisying solution. For really good stacked photos o verysmall fowers, wind is pretty much a deal breaker.

Tere is an inexpensive way out o this, although it is a realPIA to haul around, and that is: a Light ent. Light entsare expandable cubes o translucent material that are usedor product photography.

tent or it to be used outdoors, and resign dedicate the tentor eld work, since it is going to get dinged and smudge nomatter how careul you are.

Simply place the tent over the area on the ground where thefowers are and start shooting. Te tents even come with aVelcro cover or the ront (with a s lit or the camera lens), ithe wind is trying to get in the ront direction, so you haveve sides that are closed and one side (the bottom) that isopen. Tese light tents work g reat or ground work, provid-ed you resign yoursel to carting them around in the woods,in addition to your tripod, camera, lenses, and what-not.

But this is a real solution worth trying i you really wantthose good stacked photos.

PHOTO

On the right is an inexpensive Light ent that I have cutthe bottom (cut on one o the fat sides) out o. I then placethe light tent over the subject, as you can see. Here the sub-ject is the Mullein plant. In this photo, I have partially bentthe detachable (velcro) ront panel back, so that you can seeinto the tent. I usually just poke the camera lens throughthe slit in the ront or pull back the velcro rom the top andshoot downward rom there. Tis is my smaller tent. I alsohave a 48 tent that kids could play in. I use it to place overwhole sections o plants, like in a eld, so that I can stop thewind and concentrate on the fowers or the insects on the

fowers, etc.

Here you see a Nikon D3s on a Gitzo G2531 tripod, witha Markins Q3 ballhead, and a Nikon MC-30 remote shut-ter release. Tese and the ollowing shots are kind o sloppy,because I was ghting rain that was only minutes away.

The Art of Focus StackLight Tent with Front Peeled Back So That You Can See Normal Use of the Light Tent


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Light Tents in the Field

Light ents old up fat or can be twisted into a small roundpackage, but as you get to the larger sizes, it becomes moredicult to twist them into their smallest orm. Lets ace it,light tents are a hassle to drag around but i you live in an

Light Difusers

Diusers and refectors are readily available on Ebay, B&H,Adorama, and other providers o photography accessories,and there are many tutorials on the Internet as to how touse them Tere are gold silver and white refectors and

Light Tents Modied Light Diffuser


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light tents are a hassle to drag around, but i you live in anarea where wind is the deault and not the exception, likeMichigan, your choice is wither waiting a long time or thechance to make a stacked photo or using a light tent. And Imean a long time.

As mentioned earlier, taking a traditional one-shot photo isnot too much o a problem in wind. Just push up the shut-ter speed or the aperture, or both. Forget about getting astacked photo that day. However, i you stack photos thenwind will seldom let you get more than a couple o shots obeore it starts to move things around within the rame.

Even with a light tent, you have wind. It creeps in throughthe bottom o the tent, although using a couple o rocks orlarge sticks to weigh down the sides can lessen it a bit. Still,i the wind is up and the fower (or whatever) is delicateand on an attenuated stem, you are going to nd movementand still be waiting or the wind to die down, although lighttents greatly can speed up an outing, allowing you to getmany more photos on a windy day.

I have 24 and 48 light cubes and usually always havethe smaller o

art of focus stacking

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